Volatile Gas World

A total dag's perspective on life, motherhood and anaesthesia.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Birthday Boy

So it was Patrick's first birthday yesterday. We kept it very low-key: no clowns, reptiles or jumping castles, just us two plus his Grandma from Canberra and his aunt from Sydney. We went to one of those indoor play centres that has a cafe attatched (except they stopped serving lunch at !! one pm !!)and then after he had had a nap we went for a swim at the pool where I do my laps (theocean baths have way too much 'yummy' sand and choking-hazard size rocks for Patrick just now). I went to Coles and bought birthday cake and party hats and we had fun singing happy birthday to our little boy for the first time- man is that surreal. He got loads of fun presents- incluing some Duplo Lego from his auntie E which we have spent most of today morning playing with (P, MrT and me).

I'm preparing a lengthy, wordy post reflecting on the last year that I'm warning you right now contains a load of introspection but some home truths to be posted in the next few days. I can tell you're just hanging out for that, eh.

Oh and Paddy is now officially a toddler- he took his first two steps unaided the day before his birthday. O fraking M fraking G.

Friday, February 08, 2008

Xue xu blurrr (tr: loads of photos)

Patrick is full on having little conversations with us and himself. I'm trying to get a clip going but I've ummm... been busy (again). He often sound slike he is speaking mandarin- kind of shee sheue shuerrrr (apologies- I know no Mandarin- unlike Kevin07).

But what's even better is I'm pretty sure yesterday he said "mama". I was so excited. He also seems to say "up" when he wants to (eg) get out of his highchair or the car seat- times when I normally say "up up" to him. And he says "Ello" to his toys when he sees them. Cute.

He is unfortunately having separation anxiety revisited. Bummer.

Now enough gab, here are the photos of our Road Trip.Baby bath in a bucket in a Benalla motelAt 'The Dog on the Tuckerbox'. MrT is wearing a virtual paper bag on his head.

I didn't know this before but the poem about the dog on the tuckerbox was about some bushman who was having a really bad day, and the dog didn't sit on the tuckerbox... it's more "And the dog shat on the tuckerbox 5 miles from Gundagai".

For all of you going WTF here is the link.Waiting for the train in North Melbourne stationPatrick meets The Twinkle in Melbourne. And being the flirty man he is, immediately makes a lunge for her...J-Le and I met up in Melbourne. It was truly lovely to meet her and the Twinkle. I mean, I know that meeting up with someone you 'met' on the interweb is fraught with danger, but, like J-Le says, what's the internet for if not to bring nice people together...Massive tree fern (Cyathea) at Tarra Bulga National Park. Beautiful day walks there, well worth the trip. Yes, that's MrT at the base of it. He's 6'4".Patrick loved the baby carrier. Daddy wasn't so sure...All smiles on 90 Mile BeachThe flies at Lakes' Entrance were appalling. Filthy. It's the drought, according to the locals. The best option was to let them just sit on whatever was the least annoying thing- like MrT's backpack- instead of, like, your eyes and mouth. We didn't have any picnics here. Can't remember why...Th Snowy River at McKillops Bridge. If you are game and a careful driver this is a spectacular side road.Christmas in Canberra. Woo hoo.Wait! I didn't get any eggnog!

More photos, from the last monthAnother $500 well spent. What's frustrating is that I could easily (!SO easily!) do this myself if only I had the right drugs. But it's not worth my career.I've been hypnotised by your boobs, mummyTired and emotional...they just can't spell? Or is it a case of 'puck youmiss 'Finally, everyone told me how good I was looking this day, so I thought I'd record it for posterity.

Sunday, February 03, 2008

I'm on sick leave: I finally got my trigger finger operated on, and whilst it's not too hurty, I can't get it wet for two weeks hence no hand washing, hence no patient contact, hence no work. Shortly after I wrote the last post my Medela Harmony died, after I had taken the pumpy thing apart like it says not to. It's resurrectable for emergencies but I thought what the hell, and went out and paid up for a swing. Hooray for one-handed pumping!! (Just in time, too).

I'm suffering from the Karmic repercussions of forgetting to chart laxatives for my patients who are on truck-loads of heavy-duty opiates... One dose of Panadeine Forte (I've never mentioned how much I detest codeine, but I will now: Codeine is a CRAPhouse drug and should not be prescribed by anyone, ever. ) and I'm just about gummed up from here to Christmas: not nice. I took 3 laxettes (Yum! Chocolate!) and when nothing happened I took another three, then another two. And some prunes. And then the floodgates opened. Wish I could get an epidural for my stomach cramps...

Patrick continues to walk assisted, and he's getting very good at it, preferring to run when he can. However, he must have two hands held at every moment or he develops 'sticky foot'- if you let go of one hand (let's say the right) that foot (ie the right)will get stuck to the floor, as if by a very powerful magnet, until the hand is held again. When he's in a good mood this leads to him walking around in a circle with the 'sticky' foot stuck to the ground, netball-style. When he's in a bad mood he'll just start crying and the other foot will go a few steps forward until he's at full stretch like a gymnast attempting the splits. It's both cute and hilarious.

He's cruising the furniture like nobody's business, too. He loves to spin the old office chair I have this laptop sitting on until the powercord wraps around the stem so tight he can't move it anymore. He also babbles like there's no tomorrow: the other day we went and visited a friend with a baby three weeks younger than Patrick and he pointed and said "babba" which my friend (seemingly correctly) translated as "Baby". I then immediately admonished myself for not listening more closely to his speech, and spent the rest of the day in UN-Translator mode. He said "Patrick" and "dadda" and "Meg" and "that" and "fan" and I'm pretty sure also "bird". Or so I think. "Meg" is the only one he says with any regularity. My excuse is I've always been pretty vague on things like song lyrics, and have avoided loud pubs because I can't hear a thing. But he certainly responds to words, so he knows what loads of things mean. MrT and I have realised this means we need to cut down on the cussing. Damn. Shit. Bloody Hell. Fuck it all to Hell. Monkey see...

Finally, yes, that was a bit of a throwaway line at the end of the last post. Yes, I'm crazy, but I've started taking folate again. MrT and I decided on 'more than one and less than four' a long time ago. Despite the hell that I went through, I can't imagine never doing it again. I guess I'm lucky: I don't have to go through IVF, or find a donor, or risk life-threatening things like PET reappearing. But I'm still worried that it will again take some time: that I may again go through a number of M/Cs. I'll be 37 at the end of this year, and whilst I would dearly love to have a bit more time with Patrick, just watching him grow up and change, I'm worried that if I leave it too much longer, our chances of having a healthy child will plummet. Most of all I worry that I'll have the pre-natal and post-natal depression again. I went to the GP a while back to talk about coming off the Sertraline, and she advised that I should stay on it for 12 months given I have a history of depression before. So that would be May, but that's OK 'cos you need 3 months' worth of Folate.

And I don't know whether it's the sertraline, or the breastfeeding or what, but dammit, unexpected pregnancy just sooooo isn't a worry for me, right now. Oh, and a husband that commutes for two and a half hours every day kinda puts a dint in the snuggling time... .

Finally, speaking of unexpected pregnancies, we went out and saw 'Juno' on Saturday (my mum is helping me out post-op). I loved it. Good film, worth splashing out on a sitter for.

I'll post some photos next time, and maybe some vid of P doing 'the woggle' (it's his own dance step) but for now, here's a link to a you tube thingy that had me ROTFLWMP (wetting my pants. I am a mummy after all...)